Hi.

Since i reached Master i thought it was a good idea To show the evolutions that I could make in my gameplay. And to tell the truth I started to play Sona in a more "classic" way and it works pretty well.
I still have a very "aggro" way to play her in Lane. If you don't like the fact of being passive and waiting for Scale (which was quite successful for me since I went from D3 to master 80 LP) I think you will like the new build !

I went back to the Sona "support" path and I took Aery as my main rune. Why did I do it? Well simply because it allows to proc Waterflow/Ardent by using the Q spell and the E.
And also because when playing in Moonstone the shield bonus improves the rune considerably.

Otherwise, as you can see in the new list of items/Runes, it's rather classic.

Summoners:

Since you play moonstone and alot of items who improve healing done. Heal is the better summoner spell. With full items your heal is going to heal 700-800 PV.
If your adc is dumb and force heal you can take ignite. Exhaust is bad with Sona since you already have one with your green passive.

Runes:

Pretty classic runes for Sona. I like to play with scorch for win more lane the poke is pretty good with it.
Otherwise you need presence of mind since we won't play tears, why ? Cause we want Moonstone ASAP. for the power spike the item provide and cause others items are better on Sona you are a god at proc Waterstaff and Ardent on your mates, abuse it.
And don't think Ardent is only good in TF the items is pretty insane for race objectives and even better for destroy tower. Yeah AP with AS destroy them pretty fast !

Rush Moonstone first, don't even get boots before getting the items. The sooner you get the moonstone the sooner u win drake and early TF.

After that u can get boots i recommend to stay with T1 boots if you see Staff/Ardent/Chemtech/Mikael are required ASAP. (If you get alot of AA champs, AP, or your team really need antiheal.) Otherwise you can get T2 boots. (Check the Boots section for understand which choice you need to make.)

You need to understand the only mandatory item you should buy every games is Moonstone. The rest depend of your team and the ennemy team. If you want to be a good sona you must adapt and think about which one is the best at the current time.

Staff of Flowing Water:

It's probably the better item on Sona. But it's even better if you play with allies who need AP. If you have two AP champ in your team and they are actually fine in the game. Rush it after moonstone.
Don't forget that the AH it provide make it sometime better to get even with AD champs than ardent (Aatrox/Riven/Qiyana etc...)

Ardent Censer:

A very underestimated item because the contribution of damage in the tooltipe is often ridiculous.
But you should know that it doesn't count the 30% of AS given. And that the item is just excellent for destroying objectives quickly and even more for towers. If you have at least two allies who benefit greatly from the item and the attack speed (Yone/Yasuo/Vayne.... Even Garen and Katarina !), buy it before the Staff.
Don't forget this item the only way you have to proc chemtech effectivly.

Mikael blessing:

A defensive item for you and your allies.
If there is a lot of AP in front of you the defensive stats will already be very good on you so it can be a good reason to take it with Mercury in comps where the only opponent damage is magic. It can also be a good item to take quickly if you have a very feed early Hyper Carry (An irelia in 8/0 at 20 min ?) If there are CC in front of it the item can save it and allow it to continue to stomp the opponents.
So, to do only.
1) A lot of magic damage in the opponent team.
2) An ally who atomizes the opponents and there is "A little" of CC in the opposite team.
3) Against champions like Rammus, Shen, Ashe who have HARD CC.

Chemtech putrifier:

Chemtech is problematic now since Sona have hard time to proc it on ennemy range. But there is a solution to that. Just buy ardent. this way all of you allies will proc it with the ardent censer damage. It's better to just get orb and upgrade this item as last since he don't provide anything expect stats.

Frozen Heart:

The best armor item on Sona. All stats are excellent on her and she gives you an extra Aura !
Nevertheless the item has become quite expensive. I recommend to buy this item only if you see that your opponent's team is almost entirely composed of AD characters (And it must be said that it happens sometimes!) Or if there are champions like Rengar or Yi in front. These champions will target you very often and with Frozen Heart and Tabi you will easily have time to survive their engagement to use your ultimate and let your team take care of the rest. :)

Redemption:

Sometimes you won't have many allies that benefit from Ardent, and there won't be many AP champions in front of you or any really annoying CC. And no characters that heal themselves!
In this kind of case when no item seems obvious to you you can make a redemption after Waterflow which will remain much better than the other items mentioned since the active is very good on you.
I have to admit that it happens very rarely to me to do it but the activation remains nevertheless rather good and the stats are not horrible also.

Boots:

For the boots do not improve them immediately.
You have your E for the movespeed so that's not what matters most to you. Keep your T1 boots until you realize which threat scares you the most.

Of course if the whole team is made up of AD characters you can go straight for the tabi, and if it's AP for the mercury.

But most of the time the teams are more balanced. And you will understand easily who will be the most problematic. The speed boots for example can be a saving grace against a team composition based on slowing down. (A Nasus and a Senna in front of you for example).
If on the contrary there is a lot of C/C, the mercury will be there for you.

Trust your own instincts, and since you won't upgrade them until you've completed at least your first suppot item, this will give you time to identify the threats and players most likely to make you bite the dust.

And if there are none. You can then go on the Boots of Lucidity !

If you aren't taking damage in lane and are ahead you can take Q spell lvl 4 too for poke even harder. But max heal after. You need to heal alot when you get moonstone.

Most common is Q/W/E/W (E is good level 3 for chase or escape. The slow passive is insane since the UP, and you can't proc it before having E.)

It's true that it's nice to share builds but to improve there is nothing better than little tips and my guide clearly lacks them.

First of all I will talk about the game plan.

Game plan:

What is it? Well it's the way you decide to play your game. On some characters it changes completely but on Sona it's pretty much always the same. The strong point of SOna is definitely its scaling and teamfighting. On the other hand the character is very weak at the beginning of the game.
So there are three scenarios.

You win your lane, the game is almost certainly won, you will easily turn your allies into war machines.

You are even, it is 98% of the time to your advantage. Only Yuumi outscale Sona and still Yuumi is a personal Sona, if she doesn't have a super feed hypercarry you outscale her.

You lose your lane: This happens most often with Sona because you are at a disadvantage but it should not become a habit. You have to learn to limit the damage, put pressure, and not get outtrade. This is definitely what will help you win games and that's why my runes are as aggro as possible. To avoid that this kind of scenario happens too often.

How to win your lane with Sona ?

The first thing to know is to understand who you are playing against and ask yourself two questions. What can kill me ? Will I win a trade?

Against Tank support:

A concrete example, you play against Leona. Your role will be to bait her engagement spell, so that she misses it. Don't try to attack her with your auto attack before she misses. Just be a little mosquito that poke with the Q spell and make big trades on those mistakes.
This is also the same pattern for all tank engages whether it is Nautilus/Thresh etc... You have to wait for them to miss a spell and punish them as soon as they do. Note that Nautilus is simpler since you can take advantage of the minions.
However, there are some special cases like Pyke. Pyke has the potential to kill you at level 2 if he uses his flash. Against a pyke, always keep your flash. As soon as you see him running towards you with his stun spell, he will flash behind and then hook you. You must flash the instant he flashes too. If he misses, he won't have the potential to kill you unless he hooks you like a Leona/Thresh.
These match ups are the most fun to play in my opinion. It requires you to have a very good placement and to play at the limit, you have nevertheless quite a lot to get out of it thanks to your speed boost.

Against Enchanters:

You outscale them, just play normally and you'll be fine. I ban Janna every time I play because the champion is way too strong in SoloQ.
For the rest, whether it's Soraka/Nami/Yuumi/Lulu, it will depend on the ADC, but overall you shouldn't have too much trouble playing well, even against the Lucian Nami. Poke at the Q spell, when they charge you use your passive to slow/reduce the damage and ESPECIALLY. stay close to your ADC to not get punished stupidly. When playing Sona you must stay in line with your ADC. Not too much in front (when there is a threat otherwise it's ok) and not too much behind to put pressure in lane and make it clear that if they dare to attack your pocket ADC they will take a Q spell and a passive+AA in the face.

Against mage:

ANNOYING. The worst MU of Sona for me. There's nothing interesting and you'll just get abused the whole time. So suffer in front of lane (without giving too much kill.) the best is to have a jungler who comes to help you because they will generally have no way to avoid gank. If you manage not to be too far behind you can be sure that you will be much more useful than this fake support who will have no way to peel his ADC this last one probably becoming laughable with the passing of time by being stolen his farm by his "support" and having nothing at all to protect him in teamfight.

How to use your passive ?

When playing Sona you have three different passives.

Blue:

Used mainly at the beginning of the game to trade in lane phase. Then it would be simply used to "finish" if you are in 1V1 or to destroy towers or objective (Don't forget that it hurts much more than the two others on towers!)

Green:

A kind of mini exhaust which is why we don't play this summoner spell by the way. To be used on assassins and other champions who are in melee or in the process of Burst (a Zed or Rengar who jumps on your ADC for example.)

Purple:

Probably the strongest now. The slow is very very strong. It allows you to catch a lot of enemies or to run away from them. Spam it on a Darius feed and it won't be able to reach anyone. :)
This is also your best way to get kills after a gank on your lane. You will rarely make a mistake using it on a champion.

Hey.

The meta has changed a lot in the last few weeks, pushing the Enchanters a little further back.

While the Sona Tank build was effective, it admittedly doesn't work at high levels where players won't even bother to focus you anymore.

I thought for a moment that all hope was lost for Sona before I realized that Shubber, was playing a different build.
A new build, allowing to win almost all his lanes with Sona. Yes you do not dream. With this build you become a pure lane bully.
The build Sona comet. In view of the fact that I saw no other player of Sona take this build it seemed to me a good thing to propose this new meta that Schuhbart proposes to us and after having tested it on about thirty game in Elo diamond. the result is without call. I won 80% of my lanes (and even succeeded in making ragequiting the support in front of me...! While let us admit it usually it is rather our adc which ragequited by seeing us pick Sona. :') )

So I updated the items section. After the gameplay does not change so much seen that in my build we already played Shurelya and max Q spell.

https://streamable.com/g2jvan

An example of a move where the two comets allowed me to make a kill where playing Aery would have unnecessarily put a shield on my ally and let him live.

Shurelya:

Following the new nerf of Moonstone. Shurelya is becoming more and more an evidence on Sona. Let's not forget that it is the support that proc it with the most ease all the time on his team. And that the CDR is a crucial stat on Sona.

Sorcerer Shoes:

Your new mision following the massive nerf of the enchanters will be to poke or even assassinate carry sometimes.
The magic penetration is therefore a statistic that will help you easily in this task.
Unless you are facing a full AD team where AP or tabis and mercury threads will do a wonderful job these boots are now your base set.

Chemtech, Tideflot or Ardent:

You have to choose one of the three items depending on your team and what is in front or in your team.
If you are facing many characters with life theft or a support that heals Chemtech.
For the ardent censer and tideflot on the other hand it is up to you. How many allies benefit from an AP bonus? How many allies benefit from an AS bonus? (Don't forget to count yourself in the number of AP of course. In case of a tie don't forget that tideflot is much better on you than ardent which will only benefit you to kill towers faster or nashor/drake).

Lich Bane:

A fabulous item on the old Sona AP that can finally make a comeback with this build.
Coupled with your passive this item will allow you to put midlife a carry with a Q spell + proc passive. The item also turns you into the support that destroys towers with the most ease.

Zhonya:

In case you are the target of too many assassins you will not have time to assist your allies nor to put any damage. Zhonya will be preferred to Lich Bane.
Don't forget that this item is very strong allowing you to survive but also to gain a lot of time to give your allies the opportunity to kill the assassins who will have used everything on your person.

Wardstone:

I recommend to buy this item (Instead of Zhonya or Lich Bane) In case you play against a feed Twitch/Evelynn/Shaco. Against them the second pink ward can be game breaker render them unable to get you from behind or securing objective even further.

Arcane Comet:

This rune turns you into a machine.
Although for some it's a troll on a slow-moving champion. (And it's true that you'll miss some comets.)
The big problem with Aery is that it is very difficult to poke with it. Your aura puts it very often on your ally and you lose the damage while placing a useless shield.

Comet on the other hand gives you a lot of damage and what's more by spamming your Q spell on CD it will work every two Q spell. And let's not talk about the fact that the comet can also hit both players!


Manaflow:

Mandatory rune on sona. Nothing to add really.

Absolute Focus:

You have an amazing range with your Q spell. So in the most scenario you will be full health. The extra AP are kinda nice for deal damage and bully your opponent and that's exactly what you want.

Scorch:

Amazing rune. with comet and this it's like proccing your Q spell TWO time in one single spell.

For the Precision tree it's exactly the same than the tank build so nothing to add.

Hello.

I'm Hurlevent, An OTP Sona playing the champion for two seasons now.
I play on the EUW server and I play in diamond league oscillating between D1 and D2.
With a friend also OTP Sona (TheMozartRequiem) we discovered with horror that it was very difficult for us to win games after the patch (The poor guy lost 150 LP.... And me 200.... !)
So that's the reason why we have been working hard. Giving up the character was not an option for us, so we decided to theorycraft a few builds and I will share with you the one that works best for both of us!

(The goal being simply to guide those who now have difficulty playing the champion with the next patch I did not really oriented myself on matchup and synergy. But if you're interested, don't hesitate to ask in the comments if you'd like to have some information about it. I will try to add some if it is the case ! )

Items explanations:

Classical Build:

Here we go.

At start u take spellthief two health pot and yellow trinket like before.

First back you want to get tear, it's really important for your mana issue. (But upgrade it only as last item. Seraphin was great last patch but not anymore, they nerfed the sustain and we don't play moonstone.)

After that you want to rush Shurelya, Sona is probably the best champ for proc it on all your teamates at once and it really shine on her giving her alot of utility. Sona heal sucks since this patch. and the better way to improve that it simply to improve kiting and dodge ability of you and your mates.

Now the fun start.

Sona was previously played as a very good healer who could buffer his team with ardent censer and tideflot staff.
Indeed these items allowed to buffer your allies but also to improve your healings, except that even with a complete equipment dedicated to that you will not be efficient at all, and even worse. You will remain as squishy as Sona was before.

The goal is to make Sona more "Tanky" and to keep this utilitarian side. The best item for this is without a doubt the frozen heart. The stats are very good on Sona. CDR, mana, and a LOT of armor.
Unless your opponent's team is all AP champions, go ahead and get this item.

Then comes the anti AP gear. Although the abyssal mask might seem tempting at first, having the same mechanics as the frozen heart, the range of the latter is very limited.
That's why the best choice seems to be force of nature. The stats are amazing making u ever faster (Really you are rocket with this, Shurelya, boots, your E and Celerity runes. And the passive is really great. I thought first spirit visage was the way to go but since sona heal suck with this patch it's better to take force of nature instead !

And to finish, you can improve your tear of the goddess. Once completed it will make you very very tanky. So you can support your allies for a long time during team fights.

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Which boots ?!

For the boots do not improve them immediately.
You have Shurelya for the movespeed so that's not what matters most to you. Keep your T1 boots until you realize which threat scares you the most.

Of course if the whole team is made up of AD characters you can go straight for the tabi, and if not for the mercury.

But then the teams are more balanced. And you will understand easily who will be the most problematic. The speed boots for example can be a saving grace against a team composition based on slowing down. (A Nasus and a Senna in front of you for example).
If on the contrary there is a lot of C/C, the mercury will be there for you.

Trust your own instincts, and since you won't upgrade them until you've completed at least the frozen core, this will give you time to identify the threats and players most likely to make you bite the dust.

And if there are none. You can then go on the Boots of Lucidity !

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Situationnals items:

Chemtech remains a very good item on Sona.
It is probably the medium that gets the most out of it. If you are facing characters that heal a lot (Irelia, Lee Sin, Nasus....) don't hesitate to buy it instead of the frozen heart or the spirit visage depending on the damage of the opponent team.

Mikael when has him is also a situational item. If you find yourself in a game where you see that one of your allies is extremely feed and can carry the game. But the other team has a lot of C/C don't hesitate to do it. A simple use of the Mikael on an Irelia feed at the right time can allow you to finish the game in a flash.
If you are facing a full AP team you can also use it instead of the frozen heart. AP characters often have CC and the defensive stats of the item will go hand in hand with your spirit visage.

Finally an item that can also replace spirit visage if you are facing a team only composed of AD. Don't forget to use it can make the difference once the Samurai brothers ult you in all directions!

It doesn't really change from the usual runes on Sona.

Aery is still the best rune on her, very flexible allowing both poke or shield.

Manaflow is also necessary. Even if we play tear we will miss mana regeneration because of our items.

Celerity is a very good rune with Shurelya. It will allow you to move much more easily to ward/avoid skillshoot, save a person.

And finally scorch. Sona's AP ratios are RISIBLE, so I think it's a good idea to use this rune to put more pressure on the lane phase.

for the precision tree.

Presence of mind, Also very necessary for the same reason as manaflow.

For the last choice there are two possible. Cut Down to improve your early damage and to ensure you picks. and also Legend Tenacity if you meet a team with a lot of C/C (Leona/Veigar for example.)